Welcome to HR Over Coffee, a blog and video series from the experts at HR360, where you will learn how to effectively hire, manage and terminate employees.

From water cooler gossip… to interminable meetings… to hours wasted scrolling social media, the modern workplace is teeming with threats to employee productivity. And those distractions are taking a toll: several recent surveys show U.S. employees spending a mere 40 to 50 percent of their workdays engaged in job-related tasks. Fortunately, there are simple steps you can take to help employees avoid common productivity pitfalls.

Face-to-face interviews are the best way to get to know job candidates, assess their ability to perform the job, and gauge whether they are a good fit for your organization. But before committing to an in-person interview, you may want to learn more about a candidate. This is where telephone screening comes in.

When unemployment is low, you may find yourself having trouble attracting top candidates to open positions at your organization. If you’re a hiring manager in this situation, your first step is to ensure that the job salary, benefits, work environment, and potential for advancement are all as competitive as possible for your industry and location. With those items in place, there’s another piece to the puzzle that can make a huge difference in reaching your ideal applicant: a great job ad.

Even experienced managers and supervisors can find themselves confused by the differences between a job description and a job ad. The two are distinct entities… with each playing its own unique role in the recruitment process.

It's a busy Monday morning, and half your team is out with the flu. While you're prepping for the afternoon's client presentation, one of your employees comes into your office to give you his two weeks' notice. Should you demand his company ID and tell him to leave right away, or let him continue to work for the two-week resignation period?

Did you know that work is the second most common source of stress after money?Worries about workload, job security, or work/life balance can all take a toll on your employees, causing symptoms such tension and irritability, inability to make decisions or concentrate, feelings of powerlessness and anger, physical ailments, and risky behaviors such as increased use of alcohol and drugs or even violence-- none of which make for a happy and productive workplace.

According to management expert and dean of Harvard Business School, Nitin Nohria, communication is the real work of leadership. And that doesn’t apply only to Fortune 500 companies. No matter the size of the organization, effective managers must be strong communicators to inspire and lead their teams. Unfortunately, with day-to-day business demands, communication skills are getting short shrift at too many companies. Today we’re going to give you a communication tune-up—a set of strategies and suggestions that will help keep your communications efforts on point.

1. Understand that whether you realize it or not, you’re always communicating. Your office environment, corporate culture, and treatment of customers and employees all say a lot about your company. Each of these contributes to your overall reputation in the marketplace or, if you prefer, your brand. As Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon, says, “Your brand is what people say about you when you are not in the room.” So pay some attention to those branding elements, and make sure that the communications you telegraph are in line with your desired goals and reputation.

2. Encourage regular and ongoing feedback from managers and supervisors to employees. This should include both positive and negative, or constructive, feedback. Remember, no employee likes to be ambushed at review time with the news that he or she has underperformed or failed to meet a goal. The time to communicate this information is while the employee can actually do something to change the situation. Equally important, provide the resources necessary for your employees to make the changes and improvements you request.

Great managers are skilled at connecting with employees and motivating them to work productively as part of a team. Having strong managers is essential for building your company’s profitability and reputation as a great place to work. However, even great managers, with the best of intentions, can inadvertently make mistakes that might expose your company to lawsuits and fines.

Employee lawsuits are an unfortunate reality in today’s workplace, and a source of concern to employers. Even a completely baseless suit can cost six figures to defend; if there’s merit behind the charges, the legal bills, fines, and settlement fees can ruin a small business. Your managers, who are the first line of employee contact, have the power to minimize some of that exposure.

Let’s take a look at five moves your managers can make to reduce your risk of a lawsuit.

1. Document Everything. This starts with the interview and extends to every aspect of management and supervisory functions. Remember, any document can potentially be used as a piece of evidence in the event of a lawsuit, so managers must be thorough. As an employer, stress the importance of documentation, provide forms and guidelines for managers to follow, and establish procedures for where and how long such documents will be stored, being sure to comply with any requirements set by law. Furthermore, ask your managers to be honest in all aspects of documentation. Many managers, for example, are tempted to gloss over areas of weakness in written performance reviews. While they may be motivated out of kindness toward the employee, they are actually putting their companies at risk in the event such an individual is eventually fired. In all cases, the records must be accurate.